Research Data Access & Preservation Summit March 26-28, 2014 San Diego, CA Ryan Clement, Reed College

1. The Blueprint as a map: Designing better data services with service blueprinting
Touchpoints
• Email
• Website
• Chat/IM
• Staff Pages
• Office Hours/Open Tutoring Hours
• Brochures & Pamphlets
• mLab
• Library Classroom
• Reference, Circulation, & Help Desks
Preliminary Findings
Similarities
• Staff members have similar service philosophies, yet think they
don’t
• “It’s important to meet them where they are”
• “I try to empower them through education”
• “Don’t waste their time”
• “Every interaction is an opportunity for teaching
• All staff members recognized inevitability of cross-over in cover-
age
Pain Points
• Non-librarians don’t understand library process or liaison structure
(“overly bureaucratic,” “political”)
• No one knows: “where is the line?”
• Communication during interactions/research - no one knows what
others are up to
• Scheduling - all departments on different schedules, students must
email back and forth with staff to schedule
• Follow-up: hard to know when sending student somewhere else if
they actually follow through
start!
Reconvene with
user, show process
& tool, explain/
instruct in WHY,
run trial(s) with
user to judge
efficacy.!
Staff goes to
outside resources
(e.g. network, web
forums,
documentation) to
find possible
solutions.!
!
Appt. – !
Further Discussion,
Sketching out
solutions,
investigating needs!
!
!
Email to set up
appt. & get details
– back and forth!
!
!
First Meeting –
Informal
Discussion!
More
Contact
Needed?!
end!
Yes!
No!
Instruc(onal
Technology
Basic
Process
start!
!
!
Email student with
information and
HOW/WHY of
search.!
!
Staff goes to
outside resources
(e.g. network,
library databases,
colleauges) to find
possible solutions.!
!
Appt. – !
Further discussion,
reference interview,
setting priorities
and assessing
needs!
!
!
Email to set up
appt. & get details
– back and forth!
!
!
!
Email from student!
!
Appt.
Needed?!
end!
Yes!
No!
Library
Reference
Basic
Process
start!
!
Appt. – !
Further Discussion,
Sketching out
solutions,
investigating needs!
!
!
Set up appointment
to meet – using
YouCanBookMe!
!
!
Contact with
student (email, in
person after
workshop)!
More
Contact
Needed?!
end!
Yes!
No!
Academic
Support
Services
Basic
Process
Key!
• Beginning & End!
!
• Process Step!
!
• Decision Point!
!
• Pain Point!
Code of Conduct
• Open to new ideas, tools, and processes
• Do not “play devil’s advocate” (Kelley & Litt-
man, 2005)
• Play the role of “the anthropologist” as much
as possible (Kelley & Littman, 2005)
• Practice and increase empathy for users
Interviews
• February and March of 2013
• 13 open-ended questions, 1 hour
• All staff members across the three Data Servic-
es departments
• Questions concerned their processes, tool us-
age, and their philosophy and feelings about
their services.
• Activity: sketch out the process you took dur-
ing a recent interaction with a student (or, in
one case, a faculty member)
Affinity Clustering (in process)
Blueprinting (in process)
• Takes into account all service touchpoints
• Traces both the patron’s journey through a service
experience and the staff activities that make this
possible
• Both visible and invisible activities represented
• Pain points (sources of frustration) identified
• More patron-focused than Process Diagrams (see
below)
Background
On Data Services at Reed
In 2013, Reed College brought together support staff from the
library, instructional technology, and academic support depart-
ments to better support data-intensive courses for students, as
well as data-intensive faculty and student research. While these
three departments have worked together in the past, this is one
of the most wide-ranging collaborations they have engaged in.
The three departments have different organizational structures,
cultures, processes, tools, and locations. Bridging these gaps to
present unified services and support is difficult but necessary.
On Service Design & Blueprinting
Service design is an important consideration for many busi-
nesses, but is especially important for information and technol-
ogy centers, as their services have broad impacts with little to
no physical form. In particular, academic information and tech-
nology centers have often grown their services in spurts largely
dependant on funding as well as changing faculty and student
needs. This growth pattern, combined with the decentralized
nature of many academic support departments, has led ad hoc
and often difficult to visualize (and discuss) service design. By
helping to visualize a largely experiential process, service blue-
printing (Shostack, 1984 and Bitner, Ostrom, & Morgan, 2008,
among others) can also provide insight into best practices for
collaboration among different units -- seeing how their servic-
es map out can allow service providers the opportunity to see
where their different workflows and process can best fit togeth-
er, and what areas have the potential to cause conflict or failure,
before trying to fit two different organizations into the same
mold.
While ethnographic research and user-centered design have
gained a foothold in academic support services, these approach-
es often are directed at physical spaces or products only, and
neglect the “service” component of the experience, which can
often have as great an effect on user satisfaction and repeated
use as the more physical manifestations of a service. More ho-
listic approaches, which take into account both physical and
experiential aspects of an interaction, can increase positive out-
comes and satisfaction for users, while also easing frustrations
and minimizing inefficiencies for staff.
References
• Bitner, M. J., Ostrom, A. L., & Morgan, F. N. (2008). Service Blue-
printing: A Practical Technique for Service Innovation. California
Management Review, 50(3), 66–94.
• Kelley, T. & Littman, J. (2005). The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO’s
Strategies for Beating the Devil’s Advocate & Driving Creativity
Throughout Your Organization. New York: Currency/Doubleday.
• Madsbjerg, C., & Rasmussen, M. B. (2014). An Anthropologist Walks
into a Bar... Harvard Business Review, 92(3), 80–88.
• Shostack, G. L. (1982). How to Design a Service. European Journal
of Marketing, 16(1), 49–63.
• Shostack, G. L. (1984). Designing Services that Deliver. Harvard
Business Review, 62(1), 133–139.
• Stickdorn, M. & Schneider, J. (2011). This is Service Design Think-
ing: Basics, Tools, Cases. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley.
• Tripp, C. (2013). No Empathy–No Service. Design Management Re-
view, 24(3), 58–64.
Further Steps
• Open-ended interviews with students (possible Summer 2014)
• Affinity clustering as a group activity (Spring 2014)
• Tool evaluation & comparative benchmarking (with other Data Services teams)
• “A Day in the Life” sessions - staff teaches staff
• Finishing service blueprint - group activity
• Group outreach activities - increase cohesiveness of communication
• Further implementation?
Methodology & Activities
Ryan Clement | Data Services Librarian
clementr@reed.edu
Reed College, Portland OR
Research Data Access & Preservation Summit 2014
March 26-28 | San Diego, CA